Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 15th February 2026
The Times & Sunday Times
Following her debut review of London’s oldest restaurant (Rules), new Sunday Times restaurant critic Camilla Long turned her attention to one of its newest, a “high-concept, Japanese-adjacent” venture from Victor Garvey, “a wild-eyed, tattooed, drama-dogged, Michelin-starred Californian/French/Spanish chef”.
After the collapse of Garvey’s sumptuous operation at the Midland Grand hotel last year, his new project is a minimalist 16-seater with a “fascinatingly self-flagellating and penitential” vibe; Camilla felt the bailiffs could arrive at any time, and “the whole thing could be gone by next week”.
The 12 (or was it 16?)-course tasting menu was a frustrating experience: the first half dozen dishes were “confident, exciting, beautiful”, and included an “incredible” king spider crab “presented in its own echidna-like hull, served with an unforgettable crab emulsion — like fishy Marmite — and roasted rice (basically medieval Rice Krispies)”. Halfway through, though, “the whole thing collapses. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just not there… as if the chef’s mind has drifted, is bored, or can’t focus, has moved on to the next restaurant, and the service goes too.”
***
Mezzogiorno, Whitehall
Naru, Greenwich
To support his contention that you can eat well at both extremes of the hospitality marketplace, Giles Coren reviewed two London establishments this week: the new restaurant from Fancesco Mazzei, ex-Sartoria and “one of London’s two or three best Italian chefs”, and a “tiddly Korean joint in Greenwich” which started out a few years ago as “a shack by the station”.
At Mezzogiorno, he gorged on a menu that was “very Calabrian/Sicilian (spicy, ballsy, plenty of ’nduja) with the odd Roman interloper (carbonara, cacio e pepe etc)” – all of which was beautifully cooked. Set inside the Corinthia hotel, it was “a dazzling space, with regal service, a wine list as long and sexy as Boccaccio’s Decameron and top-flight Calabrian scran with a bill that could have your eye out”.
Equally “lovely” was lunch at Naru, consisting cold fresh and fermented vegetables, a raw fish plate of lean and fatty tuna, salmon and yellowtail sashimi, nigiri of squid and sea bass and inside-out rolls that were all very good and well priced (a nigiri set is around £25 for ten pieces), followed by a “compellingly crisp and squishy seafood pancake”, and skewers of grilled pork belly and ibérico shoulder.
***
Nobles at Bellfield, Edinburgh
Chitra Ramaswamy revisited an old favourite dockside pub in Leith dating from 1896, “an unparalleled Victorian beauty; all stained-glass panels and models of old ships sailing above the bar”, now revived and “scrubbed up to look its best”.
The rotating list of 14 keg beers is “outstanding and extraordinarily good value” from £5 a pint, while the kitchen is run by chefs Hugh Brown and Finlay Colvin, formerly of a trio of Chitra’s favourite restaurants, Fin & Grape, the Palmerston and Mirin. Great bar snacks (devilled eggs, hash browns and fuet, a dried Catalan sausage) were followed by a “juicy monster” of a burger with salty chips, and the standout dish, turbot cooked on the bone which was “a thing of rustic, deceptively simple beauty… its skin blackened to a salt-laden crisp, the flesh coming away from the bones in soft, pearly hunks. There’s gravy, thin, rich and French by persuasion.”
One complaint though: “service is too hands-off and not warm enough, which, for me, is the raison d’être of pubs. We barely get a hello when we walk in.”
*****
The Guardian
Grace Dent revisited a “handy little” Korean dining spot where owner Abby Lee has celebrated its 20th anniversary with an “elegant revamp” that involves bravely scrapping the former table-top barbecue format (although there are still a few table-top grills left in the downstairs private dining room for those who insist).
Familiar classics like beef bulgogi with mushrooms are still available, while he go galbi grilled mackerel is just “as great as ever, and in fact it’s all the better for not having to endure my amateur antics”. New dishes on the menu “lean towards delicate, modern fine dining”, such as mul hwei, prawn, raw salmon and white fish topped with vivid orange trout roe and an iced gochujang vinaigrette.
Unusually for a Korean restaurant, it’s worth making time for desserts such as a warm, fresh, sugary, bean paste doughnut that’s “pure bliss”, or fresh vanilla ice-cream served with slices of persimmon and a spiced, sticky syrup: “absolute joy”.
*****
London Standard
David Ellis enjoyed a “flawed” but highly atmospheric meal at Kiwi/Italian chef Dara Klein’s trattoria, now in permanent premises following an attention-grabbing residency at the Compton Arms in Islington, and the sort of loud, convivial, candle-lit place where guests tend to order another carafe of wine.
Not bound to any region, Klein “simply plates up what she fancies, the stuff that makes people feel good” – most notably, her compelling chicken Milanese, “a giant of a thing… Klein’s improvement is to top the crisply breadcrumbed meat with green apple, fennel and celery: the mix is sweet and fresh and slightly tart all together.”
Most of the cooked dishes, though, were over-salted – an “obvious mistake” David felt could easily be rectified – and the pricing was inconsistent. But, he insisted: “I’ll be back; I’d bring friends here. That’s the test, really, isn’t it?”
*****
Financial Times
Jay Rayner prescribed a “steaming bowl of fragrant Vietnamese noodle soup” from this offshoot of a 24-year-old family business as the antidote to the coughs and hiccups of these “challenging times”.
The new venture, Jay said, is a tribute to late founder Lot Van Pham, whose ambition was to open a café with a short menu focused on pho – a “dish as cultural artefact, a marker of identity”. The broths are “pristine and limpid”, and come with “ivory threads of rice noodle” and slices of beef, tripe or tendon, or chicken, prawn or tofu.
There are “other great things” on the menu – prawn summer rolls, salt-and-pepper battered squid, whole barbecued quails, spicy bun bo hue soup, rice bowls – “but the pho really is the point”, perfect for over-worked, under-slept denizens of the nearby City.
*****
Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles gave a hearty thumbs-up to the latest outfit from the Public House Group (The Pelican, The Hero and The Fat Badger), who are “exceptionally good at… taking old pubs in well-to-do areas and smartening them up, without ever losing sight of what makes a proper local boozer”.
As at the other pubs, the menu is a mix of “exalted bar snacks and no-nonsense British comfort food, clad in a Huntsman two-piece”. Highlights included a pork pie with “pastry burnished on the outside and lardy soft within”, pressed pig’s head deep-friend in breadcrumbs, “the interior gently sweet with the merest whiff of the farmyard”, and good sirloin steak cooked rare. “As ever, it’s the details that matter: the gently ferric tang of the meat, and fine confit potatoes, all crisp edges and deep buttery allure.”
Tom’s one quibble was with the wine list – “there’s precious little under £50, and prices can be precipitous.”
*****
Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell recommended a recently renovated old pub as a “great reason for a day trip” to Margate for its exceptional, comforting food, including, warm, creamy and salty buns and a drinks list that is “a love letter to the pure wines of Burgundy and Bordeaux”.
“The studied minimalism verges on the austere since the owners clearly have an aversion to things like cushions, throws and rugs. The softest things come by way of an old tapestry, and a bookshelf containing some instructional food tomes, a casserole dish and some stacked copper pans.”
